2014: Apple, Google call a truce in patent battle

In a curious turn in the ongoing saga of Silicon Valley tech giants battling over each others' patents, Apple and Google reached a detente late Friday, agreeing to dismiss all lawsuits against each other and promising to work together for patent reform.

Yet even though the companies are calling a truce in their fight over Google's Motorola Mobility handset unit, a larger question remains whether this agreement signals a broader peace in the valley's intellectual-property wars.

The truce stems from a trial that kicked off in 2010 pitting Apple against Motorola Mobility, the hardware maker Google purchased and sold off in parts, keeping a valuable trove of patents.

"It's about time," said analyst Van Baker with Gartner Research. "Reaching an agreement on this stuff versus fighting it out in the courts is a much more rational approach."

Baker said that in light of the way the Apple-Samsung patent-battle court case ended earlier this month with no clear winner, the parties in this patent dispute would be well served to try to work out a settlement.

"This is great news because you're just wasting time and money and prolonging uncertainty over features on these companies' devices," Baker said. "An agreement would take a lot of that uncertainly off the table, for the product manufacturers and for customers alike. So this is great news for all parties concerned."

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According to a joint statement released Friday by the two companies: "Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies. Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform. The agreement does not include a cross license."

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Two of the Apple attorneys listed on the court filing -- Michael Pieja with Mavrakakis Law Group in Palo Alto and Brian Ferguson with Weil, Gotshal & Manges in Washington, D.C. -- could not be reached for comment.

The statement did not mention Apple's other pending lawsuits in its wide-ranging patent war with competing smartphone makers, most notably Samsung, that use Google's Android operating software. Apple's disputes with Samsung have already produced two high-profile trials in San Jose and similar battles in other countries. Apple came out on top in both San Jose trials, but the damages were much lower in the second judgment, which dealt with newer mobile devices produced by the South Korean manufacturer.

The settlement between Apple and Google is likely to build momentum toward settling all the remaining smartphone-related patent disputes, said Neil Smith, a former judge with the Silicon Valley branch of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The outcome of Apple's patent suits against Samsung has "shown that there's no real victors between these companies on patents," he said.

Those disputes have shown that it's tough to get an injunction against particular features on phones, noted Smith, who now works as a consultant offering patent dispute resolution services. They've also shown that awards to the victor are relatively small and not big enough to dissuade the other side from continuing to infringe.

Given that and given the settlement with Motorola, "a settlement (with) Samsung is probably in the offing," Smith said.

Despite that prediction, the impact of the agreement was difficult to assess Friday. The pact only resolves legal disputes between Apple and Google's Motorola device business, according to a source familiar with the matter, who said it does not directly affect Samsung or other Android device-makers.

Though it was once a leading brand for mobile phones, Motorola today represents a tiny slice of the worldwide smartphone market. It accounted for less than 7 percent of the U.S. market in the first quarter of 2014, according to market research by Nielsen. After operating the division at a loss for several quarters, Google is currently in the process of selling the Motorola business to Lenovo for $2.9 billion.

Apple also settled a similar set of patent disputes with another smaller smartphone maker, HTC, in 2012. That agreement, unlike the one with Motorola, involved terms in which Apple and HTC granted each other licenses for certain disputed patents.